Aldi building 2nd Long Island store in Lake Grove

By: David Winzelberg November 30, 2011Comments Off on Aldi building 2nd Long Island store in Lake Grove

The German food giant Aldi is building its second Long Island store in Lake Grove, which it plans to open next April.

The food retailer will replace about half – 19,000 square feet – of the former 37,000-square-foot Circuit City store at the site on Alexander Avenue. Aldi’s exclusive broker, Jeremy Isaacs of Jericho-based Ripco Real Estate, said he’s in talks with other national retailers to fill the other 18,000 square feet of the property.

Aldi opened its first store two months ago in a 19,000-square-foot space formerly occupied by Office Depot on Sunrise Highway in Bay Shore. On Thursday, Aldi will open a 20,000-square-foot store at the site of a former Waldbaum’s supermarket on Gun Hill Road in the Bronx. Isaacs said that Aldi has plans to build 10 to 12 additional new stores in Nassau and Suffolk counties within the next few years.

Aldi works on a different business model than traditional grocery stores. The stores are smaller – around 18,000 square feet, less than one-third the size of many supermarkets – and they carry about 1,500 items, where most supermarkets offer 30,000. Shoppers will find few brand names at Aldi because most of its inventory is in its private-label brand. That way, the power of 9,400 stores purchasing fewer products results in lower prices, which has become the trademark of the Aldi brand. On its website, the chain claims shoppers can save 50 percent over traditional supermarkets on the items it carries.

Ranked ninth in worldwide grocery sales, ahead of Target and behind Costco, Aldi sold more than $68 billion worth of food in 2010, according to supermarketnews.com. By comparison, A&P had sales of about $9 billion. Bethpage-based King Kullen, which has 52 stores, had 2010 sales of about $940 million.

Aldi, which first came to the United States in 1976, now has more than 1,100 stores in 31 states, as part of its slow but unabated global growth. The chain added 80 stores in 2009 and nearly 100 last year.

Aldi’s parent company, Albrecht Discount, is no stranger to the area. Albrecht Discount also owns Trader Joe’s, which has five stores on Long Island. Trader Joe’s follows a similar model as Aldi, carrying almost exclusively private-label items in smaller-sized stores.